“Now, as soon as I heard how the land lay, I nipped into the surgery and got a fish-bone that I keep there in a pillbox for emergencies, stuck it into the jaws of a pair of throat forceps, and off I went. ‘Show me whereabouts it is,’ says I, handing him a probe to point with. He showed me the spot and nearly swallowed the probe. ‘All right,’ said I. ‘I can see it. Just shut your eyes and open your mouth wide and I will have it out in a jiffy.’ I popped the forceps into his mouth, gave a gentle prod with the point on the soft palate; patient hollered out, ‘Hoo!’ I whisked out the forceps and held them up before his eyes with the fish-bone grasped in their jaws.
“ ‘Ha!’ says he. ‘Thank Gawd! What a relief! I can swallow quite well now.’ And so he could. It was a case of suggestion and counter-suggestion. Imaginary fish-bone cured by imaginary extraction. And it made my local reputation. Well, goodbye, old chap. I’ve got a visit to make here. Come in one evening and smoke a pipe with me. You know where to find me. And take my advice to heart. Never go to extract a fish-bone without one in your pocket; and it isn’t a bad thing to keep a dried earwig by you. I do. People will persist in thinking they’ve got one in their ears. So long. Look me up soon,” and with a farewell flourish of the umbrella, he turned to a shabby street door and began to work the top bellpull as if it were the handle of an air-pump.
I went on my way, not a little amused by my friend’s genial cynicism, nor entirely uninstructed. For “there is a soul of truth in things erroneous,” as the philosopher reminds us; and if the precepts of Solomon Usher did not sound the highest note of professional ethics, they were based on a very solid foundation of worldly wisdom.
When, having finished my short round of visits, I arrived at my temporary home, I was informed by the housemaid in a mysterious whisper that a police officer was waiting to see me. “Name of Follett,” she added. “He’s waiting in the consulting-room.”
Proceeding thither, I found my friend, the Highgate inspector, with one eye closed, standing before a card of test-types that hung on the wall. We greeted one another cordially and then, as I looked at him inquiringly, he produced from his pocket without remark an official envelope from which he extracted a coin, a silver pencil-case and a button. These objects he laid on the writing-table and silently directed my attention to them. A little puzzled by his manner I picked up the coin and examined it attentively. It was a Charles the Second guinea dated 1663, very clean and bright and in remarkably perfect preservation. But I could not see that it was any concern of mine.
“It is a beautiful coin,” I remarked; “but what about it?”
“It doesn’t belong to you, then?” he asked.
“No. I wish it did.”
“Have you ever seen it before?”
“Never, to my knowledge.”
“What about the pencil-case?”
I picked it up and turned it over in my fingers. “No,” I said; “it is not mine and I have no recollection of ever having seen it before.”
“And the button?”
“It is apparently a waistcoat button,” I said after having inspected it, “apparently belonging to a tweed waistcoat; and judging by the appearance of the thread and the wisp of cloth that it still holds, it must have been pulled off with some violence. But it isn’t off my waistcoat, if that is what you want to know.”
“I didn’t much think it was,” he replied, “but I thought it best to make sure. And it didn’t come from poor Mr. D’Arblay’s waistcoat, because I have examined that and there is no button missing. I showed these things to Miss D’Arblay, and she is sure that none of them belonged to her father. He never used a pencil-case—artists don’t, as a rule—and as to the guinea, she knew nothing about it. If it was her father’s, he must have come by it immediately before his death; otherwise she felt sure he would have shown it to her, seeing that they were both interested in anything in the nature of sculpture.”
“Where did you get these things?” I asked.
“From the pond in the wood,” he replied. “I will tell you how I came to find them—that is, if I am not taking up too much of your time.”
“Not at all,” I assured him; and even as I spoke I thought of Solomon Usher. He wouldn’t have said that. He would have anxiously consulted his engagement-book to see how many minutes he could spare. However, Inspector Follett was not a patient, and I wanted to hear his story. So having established him in the easy-chair, I sat down to listen.
“The morning after the inquest,” he began, “an officer of the C.I.D. came up to get particulars of the case and see what was to be done. Well, as soon as I had told him all I knew and shown him our copy of the depositions, it was pretty clear to me that he didn’t think there was anything to be done but wait for some fresh evidence. Mind you, Doctor, this is in strict confidence.”
“I understand that. But if the Criminal Investigation Department doesn’t investigate crime, what the deuce is the good of it?”
“That is hardly a fair way of putting it,” he protested. “The people at Scotland Yard have got their hands pretty full, and they can’t spend their time in speculating about cases in which there is no evidence. They can’t create evidence; and you can see for yourself that there isn’t the ghost of a clue to
